Founding of the RSSILA sub branch Ingham 1933 and saga of the Memorial Hall 1938

 FORMATION OF RETURNED SOLDIERS LEAGUES

Already by 1915 invalid returning soldiers from World War 1 were forming associations and gathering in clubhouses to discuss their health problems and concerns about the lack of coordinated repatriation facilities and tailored medical services.

In May 1916 representatives of those associations met in Sydney and then Melbourne to address the need for a unified approach to these concerns. A constitution was formulated and the provisional name the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) was decided upon.

At the first Federal Congress held in Brisbane in September 1916 the RSSILA was formally constituted and name adopted.

 In November 1940 the name was changed to include airmen: Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA).

In October 1965 the name was condensed to Returned Services League of Australia.

Then in September 1990 another name change was made to cater for a wider membership as, with the passing of time, an exclusive membership of returned servicemen and women could no longer be sustained. Today the organization is known as the Returned & Services League of Australia.

FIRST MOVES TO BUILD A MEMORIAL HALL - 1920

Already, in Ingham, returned soldiers had formed themselves into what may have been an unofficial branch of the RSSILA as it wasn’t until 1924 that the North Queensland District of the RSSILA was established. In January 1920 the group held a dance to raise money for a soldiers’ ‘rest room’ in Ingham. The first ANZAC DAY dinner was held at the Masonic Hall on Palm Terrance in Ingham in 1920.  After the opening of the Shire Hall on 18 March 1921 the Honour Roll was housed in the Shire Hall and ANZAC Day ceremonies were conducted outside that building.

A committee was formed of three returned soldiers (Messrs G. Groundwater, E. Billam and C. Renouf) and three civilians (Messrs F. Cassady, G. Cantamessa and G.G. Venables) for the aim of raising funds for a Memorial Hall. A two storied brick and concrete building was envisaged whose entrance would house the honour board. The building would include a meeting room, shops and offices for rent in order to provide revenue to assist paying off the building and for running expenses.

The committee investigated the possibility of obtaining a vacant allotment (originally where the postmaster’s residence had stood) in Lannercost Street between the Post Office and the Police Sergeant’s residence. It was anticipated that between £2000 and £3000 would be required to build the Memorial Hall. Already on the occasion of the visit of the Italian Consul, Count di San Marzano to Ingham in 1929 when the Italian Returned Soldiers’ Association contributed £35 to the construction of a Memorial Hall, £1000 had been raised.

FORMATION OF THE INGHAM SUB BRANCH OF THE TOWNSVILLE RSSILA - 1933

Perhaps spurred on by Halifax which had unveiled a concrete obelisk as a war memorial on ANZAC DAY 1933 and the remark on that occasion that Ingham “was still without anything of the sort” a large number of returned soldiers met in Ingham in June 1933 to discuss the formation of a branch of the RSSILA and the building of a Memorial Hall to commemorate the fallen of World War 1and to provide a meeting place for returned service men of which there were at least 120 returned soldiers living in the district.

The President and Secretary of the Townsville branch of the RSSILA addressed the meeting and suggested that a sub branch of the Townsville branch be formed. As a result of this meeting a Herbert River sub branch committee (herewith referred to as the Sub Branch) was constituted.

LITTLE PROGRESS ON MEMORIAL HALL IN THE 1930s

However, the acquisition of a block of land for a Memorial Hall did not go smoothly. The Lannercost Street site was vetoed in September 1933 by the Lands Department because a piece of land on Townsville Road had already been allotted for that purpose. When the returned soldiers had applied for the Townsville Road land in the early 1920s the Lannercost Street block was not up for application. The 1927 flood saw the Townsville Road allotment go many feet under water which proved its unsuitability for the location of the Memorial Hall, hence the Sub Branch preferring a main street location.

After another unsuccessful bid to secure any of the town allotments that went up for lease in early 1934, the Lands Department agreed that the Council could excise a portion of the Shire Hall land  for the use of the Sub Branch on the proviso that it agreed that the land would revert back to the Council when and if the returned soldiers no longer had any use for the land.

In 1935, tenders were called for the building of the hall with shops on the land adjacent to the Shire Hall but not before another block of land that came up for lease opposite the Court House on Palm Terrace was considered but rejected. But by 1936 even the idea of building near the Shire Hall had faltered.

Though fund raising by the Memorial Hall committee continued the momentum faltered.

VINCENT EDWARD HAY SWAYNE, SOLICITOR OFFERS 4 HAWKINS STREET

A new two-storied brick and concrete building never eventuated. Just before the outbreak of World War 2, which ironically would see a member of the founding Memorial Hall Committee Giuseppe Cantamessa interned as an enemy alien. Vincent E. Swayne, solicitor, and his wife Helen (nee Fraser) offered their home to the Memorial Hall committee. The house was a typical Queenslander style and incorporated a tennis court as many houses then did. Because Swayne had named his property Kentucky, the court was called the Kentucky Court. Swayne and his family were avid tennis players and visiting teams from north and south of Ingham would travel to compete on this court. On one occasion there were 150 spectators watching the hotly contested matches.

The building was acquired for £1750 payable on terms. However, Swayne suggested that he donate £250 towards the furnishing fund if the Sub Branch would pay £1500 outright in cash. The Sub Branch secured a £500 overdraft, and the deal was completed. The Diggers’ Hack Club transferred £117 to the Sub Branch to help pay off the bank overdraft. The furnishing of the ‘Diggers’ Club Rooms’ and alterations required to convert the former home to a club house would be achieved with the donations already received which amounted to £370 and a piano donated by Swayne in addition to the agreed upon £250.

The Sub Branch took possession of the house a few days before it held its first annual general meeting in its new clubhouse at 4 Hawkins Street on Sunday 6 February 1938.

The original Swayne house continued to be renovated for the growing and changing needs of the RSL. Renovations to the club house occurred in the early 1970s, 1999 and 2010. The clubhouse hosted North Queensland District Congresses in 1948, 1957, 1983,1995 and 2011.

Kentucky Tennis Court (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Photograph Collection)

SOURCES:

A Short History of the beginnings of the RSL, http://www.rslangeles.com/history-of-the-rsl/

Herbert River Sub Branch Inc. https://www.rslqld.org/about-us/herbert-river-sub-branch-inc

TROVE – newspapers 1929-1959

Vidonja Balanzategui, The Herbert River Story, Ingham: Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We remember you, the fallen ones who gave your lives for our freedom” - WILLIAM MARKEY – An Irish born soldier of the AIF

 

Who would have thought that in researching the origins of the naming of MARKEY STREET Ingham I would discover a regretful oversight in local RSL records.

In World War 1 in 1915, Irish born William John Markey was a labourer in Ingham when he enlisted. He was killed in 1916. William John Markey is recorded as one of the ones the All Souls Church, Victoria Estate is dedicated to. He is honoured at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial and in the Commemorative Area Australian War Memorial - Panel 20. On his record held at the Australian War Memorial it says that the cenotaph on which his name should appear is Herbert River as that is where he enlisted. William John Markey is not recorded on the cenotaph, nor on the RSL honour board.

In World War 2 in 1943 Ingham born Thomas Markey enlisted in Townsville at the R.A.A.F Recruiting Unit, and formerly joined up in Brisbane. He did not die overseas while in action but in Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane from an unspecified illness less than three weeks after enlistment. He is buried in Lutwyche Cemetery, Lutwyche, Brisbane, Queensland. His name is located at panel 115 in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial. On both the cenotaph and the honour board in the Ingham RSL Thomas Markey is recorded as a casualty of World War 2.

So who were Thomas and William Markey?

Private William John MARKEY. No. 373. William John Markey was born in Belfast, Antrim, Ireland. He was the son of William & Ellen Markey, of 51 Annadale St., Belfast, Ireland. He came to Australia as a 19-year-old. He enlisted on 13 April 1915 in Ingham, Queensland. His occupation prior to enlistment was labourer. His mother was recorded as his next of kin. He embarked on 25 May 1915, in Brisbane, Queensland  on the Ascanius. He was a member of the Battalion: 2^nd Australian Division Light Trench Mortar Battery, Australian Infantry. He was killed in action on 5 August 1916 aged 23 years. His personal effects: a bible, wallet and photos were returned to his mother on his death.

William John Markey (Source: Irish Born Soldiers of the AIF)

Aircraftsman Class 1 Thomas Markey 152019. Thomas was the son of Patrick Markey and wife Jane (nee Dunlop) who were early residents of the district. Thomas was born on 26 April 1925. Patrick made application for a perpetual lease selection in the Parish of Lannercost in 1927. The Markey family had a sawmill at Log Creek in 1924. Thomas enlisted on 17 July 1943 at 18 years of age. His occupation was mail contractor, but he also worked in his father’s sawmill. He had hoped to take on a technical traineeship but failed the aptitude test so was given the duties of aircraft hand. His father was listed as his next of kin. Tragically Thomas died less than three weeks after enlistment in Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland on 4 August 1943 of an unspecified illness. According to a Hinchinbrook Shire Council document, Future Road Names - Hinchinbrook Shire Council, dated 2011 the street is named for Thomas Markey.

Thomas Markey (Source: AWM)

Rectifying the omission

Nobody would argue that Thomas Markey’s name should not be on a cenotaph, after all he volunteered and died while on duty even if it was in the comfort of a hospital bed back in Australia, rather than on the field in course of raging battle. However, it does bring into question what is the local RSL’s criteria for both cenotaph and honour board. As cenotaphs began to be erected across Australia after World War 1 they had different criteria for who should be recorded on the cenotaph. Usually though, the cenotaphs record those war casualties who died in the field and who were residing in the place of enlistment at the time of enlistment. If Thomas Markey who lived in Ingham but enlisted in Townsville and died on home ground is recorded why then is William Markey who lived in Ingham, enlisted in Ingham and died in France in action not?

How different the criteria can be is illustrated by the centotaphs that record the REJECTS! Yes, that is the word used on the cenotaphs! Rejects were those local men who enlisted but were rejected because of flat feet, myopia, sunken chest or other physical conditions that were thought would hinder their ability to perform their duties in a war zone. What is demonstrated in including a REJECTS column is that those men had exhibited their bravery in volunteering and so were worthy of recognition.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Australian War Memorial are discerning about who is considered a war casualty. For instance, local Victor John Cowen was only relatively recently added to the Ingham cenotaph and RSL honour board at the intervention of Lloyd Greentree on behalf of the Herbert River RSL sub-branch. Cowen was not initially recorded as ‘war dead’ because he died as the result of a motor bike accident in an area not publicly classified as a war zone at the time of the Indonesia-Malaysia conflict in which Cowen had seen action in flying missions. Only in 1996 did the Australian Government release classified information about the exact nature of Australia’s involvement in the Indonesia-Malaysia conflict and its secret cross-border missions, so allowing commemorations of those Australians, like Cowen who had lost their lives.

William John Markey is another clear omission from both the Ingham’s cenotaph and the RSL honour board and hopefully that omission will be rectified before the next ANZAC Day.

Sources:

Irish born soldiers of the AIF. https://irishsoldiersaifww1.weebly.com/

W. Markey. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8214871

T. Markey. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5364915

 

 

ABERGOWRIE AND THE SOLDIER SETTLEMENT SCHEME

With ANZAC Day nearly here and my work on identifying the origins of Hinchinbrook Shire road and street names of the district I have been thinking about a historical photograph which is a favourite of mine. It was published in the book South Pacific Enterprise, The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. The photographer was the inimitable Max Dupain and the photograph is of soldier settlers in Abergowrie. He has captured them looking into the distance as if contemplating a happier, more prosperous and peaceful future than the horror of the past they had just endured. One of the soldiers is William (Bill) Richmond Rae.

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

As far as I can make our at least 14 roads in the district, particularly the Abergowrie area, are named for returned solders-or soldier settlers as they were known in the 1950s. In all, however, 42 returned soldiers were allocated land in the Herbert River district. 

From road names I have identified these soldier settlers and I am open to correction: Henry and George Copley; David Craig; Reay Craven; Roy Dowling; Thomas Finlayson; Donald and Murray Groundwater; Charles Irlam; Arthur Lee; Stanley McCarthy; William Rae; Herman Strid; Douglas Venables; Herbert Wallis; Joseph Wilkinson. Noel Trost was another, though no road is named after him. But that is only 17 names of the 42. 

 How and why did soldier settlement come about in the Herbert River district? Compared to the south of the continent, the north was and continues to be sparsely settled. The close proximity of the battle front to Australia in World War 2 only heightened “the virtual obsession of land settlement authorities” (Tanzer). A solution was closer settlement with agricultural development. So, a Royal Commission on Soldier Settlement on Sugar Lands in 1946 looked into settlement of returned soldiers on farms north of Proserpine, but especially in the far northern sugar growing districts. The Herbert River district was viewed as particularly vulnerable and could be bolstered by new settlement of both returned solder and others. 

Meanwhile the demand for increased milling capacity to handle the Herbert River district’s crop was once more on the agenda. West of Ingham township had long been identified as a possible location with farmers petitioning the government in 1916 for a central sugar mill at Long Pocket. However now post World War 2 CSR and local farmers came up with the ‘Abergowrie Scheme’ which would achieve the duplication of Victoria Mill and the extension of cane growing into the Abergowrie district. 58 square kilometres of countryside along the Herbert River were identified as suitable for sugar cane cultivation.

The Abergowrie Scheme was ambitious, and it was planned that 200 new farms would be established by the end of 1954. The 'War Service (Sugar Industry) Settlement Act of 1946' was consequently passed and ballots were conducted of returned soldier applicants. Those selected for the Herbert River district were allotted 24.3 hectares (60 acres). By 1954 120 farms had been taken up by prospective growers, 78 of which had received assignments under the Sugar Industry Act, while 42 were ex-servicemen or soldier settlers who had secured their blocks by ballot. The first to take up their assignments were the soldier settlers during 1952 and 1953. 

 As John Tanzer, who had interviewed settlers from the period who were still on their farms in 1978 wrote: “During this early period of settlement the area was very isolated and living conditions were harsh. Ingham is some 50 kms. away and then was only accessible by a single dirt road. During the wet season this road was impossible for weeks at a time. There were no telephones except for one at a local agricultural college. Thus isolation was a major problem facing the new settlers and their families. In addition to the loneliness and isolation, living conditions were poor. There was no electricity in the area until 1957. Before this the new settlers had to rely on wood or coke stoves and kerosene or petrol lights. The only water available came from sinking bores. To begin with, many settlers lived in tents while their land was being cleared. Then they moved into farm sheds which were built first to store machinery. Half the shed would be used as living space and the other half set aside for the invaluable.” Moreover, “Despite the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board being assured by a spokesman for the proposal that, ‘the bulk of the land is lightly timbered, some of its river flats naturally clear and there is some scrub’ (Australian Sugar Journal, 1950), most of the land was covered by dense rainforest. This made the clearing of the land both time consuming and expensive” [requiring bulldozers]. “This high initial outlay naturally involved new settlers in substantial loan operations.” 

As soon as they were able both soldier settlers and others started abandoning their blocks. Up until 1958 they were prohibited (except in severe extenuating circumstances) by the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board from selling up. 45% of the solder settlers had sold up after 13 years and by 1978 when Tanzer conducted his research 27 solder settlers had left. While comparatively more soldier settlers exited than others in the five-year period between 1958 to 1962, once the five year sale prohibition had been lifted a half of all the new settlers who were to leave their farms did so. (Tanzer). Bill Rae was not one of those. Arthur Lee died tragically in 1953, but several others like Bill Rae weathered the adversities and held onto their farms. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

The reasons why those soldier settlers exited who did can be guessed at: • The benevolent motivation of authorities regarding returned soldiers-their eligibility was decided with less caution than in the cases of the other settlers • most of them were from the south and had never before grown sugar cane but rather had worked on dairy or sheep properties • were new to the Herbert River district so did not have family support or relatives on adjacent farms with whom they could have shared machinery, labour and expertise • they received smaller farms, in some cases less than the minimum area deemed necessary to provide an 'average living'. Of those new settlers, soldier settlers or others, who received less than 28.2 hectares (70 acres), Tanzer calculated that fewer than 50% survived • High establishment costs • Inability to access to adequate finance • Mechanization, increased costs, imperative to increase assignment • Constraint of size of initial land grant made purchasing additional assignments from those who exited prohibitive • Isolation and harsh living conditions 

For those who had to walk away from their farms on the Herbert it must have bitter sweet. They came here with so much hope. Most would be dead now, but for some their names live on not only when their families speak their names but in the collective memory of a community as residents traverse the roads named for them. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. Sydney: Angus and Robertson,1956.

Tanzer John M. AN INVESTIGATION OF NEW SETTLEMENT IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY AS A RESULT OF POST-WAR EXPANSIONS. A CASE STUDY IN THE HERBERT RIVER DISTRICT, NORTH QUEENSLAND (Bachelor of Economics, Hons, 1979.) Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. RADF Street naming project.

Ellis Rowan, flower hunter

 

Many interesting women and their stories are woven into the history of the Herbert River district. One such woman is Ellis Rowan. Her exploits and success were remarkable for the era in which she lived. This lenghty blog researched and written with thanks by Chris and Vivienne Parry is a fascinating read. 

Ellis Rowan and her son Puck

Ellis Rowan was Australia's most celebrated flower painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An emancipated woman far ahead of her time, she turned what her fellow Australian artists deemed a 'genteel' female pastime of flower painting into an adventurous and profitable career that took her all over the world. In a career spanning fifty years and ending with her death in 1922, she produced more than 3,000 paintings, many of which she succeeded in placing in public collections. She exhibited her work as far afield as London and New York and achieved acclaim at the great world expositions of her day, winning ten gold, fifteen silver and four bronze medals. Queen Victoria selected three paintings for her private chambers. She was also a writer, she recounted her travels in the popular press and in a book entitled A Flower-Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand, published in 1898.

She was born in 1848 to a wealthy pastoralist family of Victoria. Besides a position of privilege, she inherited a talent for art and natural history. Following her education in Melbourne, she visited England and probably took art lessons, though she claimed, with characteristic exaggeration, to have been entirely self-taught as an artist. She began exhibiting her paintings at about the time of her marriage in 1873 to Frederic Charles Rowan, a British army officer then serving in New Zealand and later a successful Melbourne businessman.

Ellis Rowan trekked to remote and distant places ― all over Australia, New Guinea and to the tropics of Queensland on at least six occasions. She saw herself more as an artist and public educator than a botanical illustrator. She wanted to record not the structure of flowers, but to show how they grew in their native habitats: by sea or swamp, in sparse desert, or as in north Queensland, in dense rainforest.

Though Ellis placed artistic effect over scientific record, the subjects of her paintings are accurate enough to be readily identified. Throughout her career she called on botanists to identify her subjects, sometimes sending specimens as proof.

From 1887, Ellis Rowan travelled extensively in Queensland and Western Australia in an ambitious scheme to record the Australian flora. She found the tropical flowers 'more beautiful than all' and returned again and again to Queensland during the winter months.

To explain her long absences from her husband and young son while on her travels, she invented a socially acceptable excuse: that she could not withstand the severity of Melbourne's winters. The truth is that, despite her fragile appearance, she was a woman of enormous physical stamina and determination. She returned to Melbourne only days before the untimely death of her husband, from pneumonia, in December 1892. It was found that the husband was bankrupt, so needing an income Ellis began seriously exhibiting and selling her paintings.

By then approaching her sixties, her zest for travel had not diminished and she was determined to gain recognition for her life’s work. She travelled in South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland, financing her travels with regular exhibitions. Prompted by a commission for paintings of birds of paradise for a Royal Worcester fine china tea set, she made extensive visits to Papua New Guinea in 1916 and 1917. Travelling through rugged and dangerous country to paint the endangered Birds of Paradise, she fell victim to malaria which eventually broke her health.

In Sydney in 1920, she staged what was then Australia's largest art exhibition, showing more than one thousand works. Her takings from sales of over £2,000 set a national record for a woman artist. That’s about $160,000 in today’s money. But Ellis wanted more lasting success. She was determined to place her paintings in the public domain.

Ellis wished to have her own paintings together on public display. For many years Ellis, and later a memorial committee, lobbied the Australian Government to purchase her collection, even though at that time there was no national gallery to house it. The government eventually paid £5,000 for 947 paintings, in today’s money over $460,000. They are now kept in the National Library of Australia, in Canberra.

 Her travels in Queensland

In 1887, at the age of thirty-nine, she made her first painting expedition to Queensland. After time in Brisbane, where she had introductions to the Premier and the Government Botanist, she headed to Mackay by coastal steamer where she had heard there were 'many beautiful flowers' to be found at that time of the year. Not disappointed, she stayed for almost seven weeks.

She travelled to Townsville and from there she went to the sugar plantations of the Herbert and Johnstone Rivers. In the Herbert she stayed at Macknade House, and painted flowers from the gardens and orchids collected from the surrounding rainforest. She arrived in time for the annual Ingham show and race meeting. Here she met many people and gained invitations to other plantation houses and gardens. Ellis especially liked Lucinda Point and did several paintings there.

Herbert River Cocky Apple, Lucinda

To leave the district Ellis had to be rowed out to the coastal steamer with the Herbert River in flood. She wrote that it was very dangerous and she was lucky to survive. She did a sketch of the scene which was reproduced in her book.

On a later visit to the Herbert she stayed at Farnham plantation, where her niece, Joice Nankivell, was a six-year-old. Joice Nankivell went on to become the most famous woman to be born in this district for her work with children escaping Europe in WWII and later helping Greek refugees escape from the war with Turkey. Today there is a monument to Joice in the Ingham Botanical Gardens. After Farnham Plantation went bankrupt Joice and her mother went to live with relatives in Victoria, and there she saw Ellis again and visited her at her home at Mt Macedon. Joice later wrote that it was Ellis who encouraged her to be a journalist and to travel overseas.

Herbert River Shining Starlings

She then continued north to the plantations at the Johnstone River. On this visit to Queensland, she completed at least sixty-four paintings before the heat and an attack of malaria drove her from the tropics in December.

She returned to Queensland in the winters of 1891 and 1892 for more extensive visits. On one visit Ellis made grand tours of the Torres Strait islands in the Queensland Government steamer the Albatross, as guest of John Douglas, the Government Resident at Thursday Island, who was her brother-in-law. On Thursday Island she met Sana Jardine, said to be a Samoan princess, who was the wife of Cape York pioneer Frank Jardine. She invited Ellis to stay at their home, called Somerset, on the Cape York mainland. Somerset had been the home of the Government Resident of Cape York and Ellis did many paintings there. Sana then took Ellis on a boat trip to the outer islands of the Torres Straits.

On at least one of her visits to Cairns, Ellis visited Hambledon House, built by the Swallow family, the wealthiest sugar planters in the district. The house had a huge library and a ballroom lit by crystal chandeliers. Ellis put her sketch of the house in her book.

On her visit of 1892 Ellis Rowan spent some time in Cooktown. Her object on this trip was to paint the Cooktown Orchid. From there she made an expedition to the remote Bloomfield River, and it here beside the river she found much to paint, including the Wonga Vine and the Moonflower. Ellis then made a strenuous climb of Mount Macmillan to look out over the Bloomfield valley to the coast: a scene she described as ’one of the finest in all Queensland’. From 1911 to 1913, Ellis, then in her sixties, undertook more visits to Queensland.

Herbert River Snow Wood

After 1913 she turned her attention to New Guinea, in search of Birds of Paradise. Here, in two trips at the age of 70, she painted 45 of the known species.

Ellis Rowan was possibly the most enthusiastic of all the traveller-artists to visit the Queensland tropics in her day. In 1892, looking out over the Bloomfield Valley, she wrote: ‘... if our Australian artists only knew what rich and endless subjects they would find in Northern Queensland, they would surely make up their minds to endure a little roughing and camping out ...at this time of year. It would well repay them.’

She was fortunate enough to travel when much of the countryside was botanically unexplored and its natural beauty unspoilt, when she could share the joy of finding rare or even unknown specimens. Above all, it was the botanical richness of the tropics that attracted Ellis.

Though she stressed the importance of recording her subjects in situ, working quickly, she usually completed them in a nearby plantation house or hotel. Her book recounts how she laboured into the night, painting specimens collected on excursions or presented to her by local residents. Though executed indoors, the paintings generally have the freshness of works painted in the open air, for she was a rapid and direct worker, proud that she could apply her paints without the aid of pencil under-drawing.

Ellis Rowan did not claim to be a botanical artist in scientific terms, but her evocative paintings and writings did much to raise public appreciation of the Australian flora. She left a precious record of the Queensland landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of plant species that are now disappearing.

Adapted from Judith McKay, Ellis Rowan: A Flower-Hunter in Queensland (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1990)

Other references:

National Library of Australia

Ellis Rowan. A Flower Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand. 1898

M. Hazzard. Australia’s Brilliant Daughter Ellis Rowan. 1984

P. Fullerton. The Flower Hunter Ellis Rowan. 2002 NLA

J McKay. Ellis Rowan A Flower Hunter in Queensland 1990